Why do Mitt Romney Supporters Have to Compromise to Support Their Candidate?

American politics is all about picking the best candidate among the available choices. I hated Gerald Ford; thought he was awful. But, in 1976, the first year I could vote in a national election, I voted for Gerald Ford against Jimmy Carter because Jimmy Carter was so much worse. In 1980 I was pleased and happy to both support and vote for Ronald Reagan. In 1988, I voted for George Bush Sr., believing once again that it was a vote for the lesser of two evils. His administration was a very pleasant surprise. I can still remember Rush Limbaugh’s parody, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iraq.” When operation Desert Storm was over, our family stood across from General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. in Philadelphia for the biggest parade I had ever seen.

Fast forward to 2008. The best candidate was Mitt Romney, so I supported him. This was more depressing than 1976, because Gerald Ford was picked by Richard Nixon, not the electorate. When John McCain defeated Mitt Romney, I voted for him in the general election without enthusiasm.

Now it is 2012. John Kyle, Rick Rubio, Pat Toomey and other great, well-qualified men are sitting on the sidelines. At this point, whatever you think of them, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have no chance. The race is between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is the better of the two men. While there are ads from both men that disappoint me, the outright fabrications are coming from the Mitt Romney supporters.

Rick Santorum’s greatest weakness is that his during his time in the Senate, he should have taken a stronger stand against excessive government spending. However, Mitt Romney’s record on government spending in Massachusetts is no better. Mitt Romney, as governor, had to support and/or sign bills he actually disagreed with. He has had many opportunities to explain why he made some of these decisions as Governor and as far as I am concerned, he has not done a very good job of explaining his positions.

The fibs his supporters bring up again and again all center around the false concept that we are opposed to Mitt Romney as a person. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is a list of hard-core reasons for not supporting Mitt Romney. And yes, even today he is better than John McCain.

1) As Sandra Day O’Conner pointed out, he is not a very good Mormon. America was founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic. Speeches from George Washington to George Bush make frequent references to God, pray to God, ask for God’s guidance and blessing as well as repent of sin. You may search for a long time without finding anything in Mitt Romney’s speeches to follow in this tradition. On this issue, he would be no different from Obama.

2) He signed gun control legislation. There are 80 million gun owners in the USA. That is an enormous voting block to offend for a man who calls himself a conservative. In spite of this, Ann Coulter and Ted Nugent have endorsed Mitt Romney. Ted Nugent made his endorsement Friday evening. In less than 48 hours there were several petitions with thousands of signatures (at least that is what the circulators of the petitions claim) asking Ted Neugent to resign from his position of NRA board member. Ann Coulter is facing an organized boycott of her products. Unofficial, individuals within the NRA are claiming that Mitt Romney is a greater threat to gun ownership than Barack Obama because Mitt Romney has actually signed several pieces of antigun legislation. Barak Obama would have, but he has never had the opportunity.

3) He appointed liberal judges as Governor, passing over conservatives. Though he says now that he would appoint judges like Roberts and Alito, he does not mention Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia. Why? Mitt Romney looks at Alito and Roberts as more moderate. Scalia and Thomas are too conservative for him.

4) Ann Coulter calls Obamacare and Illegal Immigration the “make or break” issues of this election. On the Illegal Immigration issue, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are close enough to ignore the issue. But Obamacare is really nothing more than a national version of Romneycare in MA. Romneycare even requires private health providers to provide free birth control, like Obamacare.

5) Rick Santorum is not making social issues the focus of the campaign. The media and Mitt Romney are. Every media event Rick Santorum attends, the social issues are the only questions these people ask. Rick Santorum has principles he is not going to compromise so he is forced to resort to short canned answers to questions which he has answered thousands of times already. Then he moves on.

Why do Mitt Romney’s supporters ignore these enormous issues and falsely claim that we have some sort of personal, unreasoning animosity toward Mitt Romney? I read a list of these personal attacks in an Ann Coulter piece defending Mitt Romney which ended with “are these the best arguments the Romney haters have?” Coulter says in the piece, published on her website February 22, “Purely to hurt Romney, the Iowa Republican Party fiddled with the vote tally to take Romney’s victory away from him and give it to Rick Santorum — even though the ‘official count’ was missing eight precincts.”

We are not Romney haters, those are not our arguments and to falsely claim that they are is dishonest. The only reason I can think of for relying on this straw man type of attack is that you are defending what you know in your heart is indefensible.